Chapter 49: Rebellion And Social Reform Are Two Different Things
The night in Sheyang City came very slowly. Yun Ce almost watched the sun set. When the sun set, the sky was not yet dark. The sky never got completely dark, which made Yun Ce extremely irritable.
To be honest, the little girl’s death had hurt him.
His initial intention in picking up that little girl was very simple. He saw that no one wanted her, no one paid attention to her, and she was sitting there alone eating dirt. Naturally, as a human being, he couldn’t stand by and watch, so he wanted to pick her up and give her to E Ji to raise. After all, he had plenty of ability to support one more child.
In the end, his good intentions had instead become that child’s death warrant, which made it hard for him to accept for a while.
He didn’t admit that the child died from drinking just a little Yi Tree Powder paste. If she had kept drinking Yi Tree Powder paste, she shouldn’t have died. She died because she didn’t have Yi Tree Powder paste to drink. So, the question was, who took away the portion of Yi Tree Powder paste that should have belonged to her?
That grain-hoarding clerk Han Dongcheng?
That Duke Yu who never let his feet touch the ground since birth?
Or rather, was one little girl’s death related to everyone in the entire city?
Yun Ce found that as soon as resentment arose in his heart, he had to vent it out. If he couldn’t vent it, his thoughts wouldn’t flow smoothly, and it would feel like a fishbone stuck in his throat, uncomfortable until he spat it out.
He remembered that he wasn’t like this in personality before. Back then, even at home, he was a rarely seen insidious type, often ridiculed by Yun Linchuan as a poisonous insect in the gutter for being too insidious.
1 Ever since enjoying a feast of Dragon Eggshell with Ao Bing, he found it hard to restrain the impulses in his heart. He had to vent his anger immediately to clear his thoughts.
1 Dragon nature is inherently fickle. The Qiantang Dragon King flooded three thousand miles in a fit of anger, killing eight million lives. Though it was just a story from a novel, it ultimately explained the dragon’s personality.
1 Feng An and Liang Kun had some foresight like a gentleman not standing under a dangerous wall. When they saw Yun Ce starting to bind his legs and placing a pile of fierce weapons on the table, inserting them onto his body one by one, the two immediately discussed with E Ji and prepared to run away.
1 Hearing that Yun Ce was going to cause trouble for rich people, even the richest in Sheyang City, E Ji was very excited. When leading four sheep carts out of the city, she deliberately left a large sack for Yun Ce.
1 Yun Ce tied the sack to his waist. He himself was like a tiger locked in a cage, pacing back and forth nonstop in the guesthouse. Unfortunately, the sky hadn’t darkened yet.
1 He couldn’t wait any longer. He put on the Pig Head Mask and left the guesthouse, not taking the main road. Soon after going out, he slipped into the Slave Path.
1 Wearing the Pig Head Mask on the Slave Path felt perfectly natural. The people here didn’t care what you looked like. Anyway, they were all hurrying along with heads down. Walking with chest out and head up was tiring.
1 There was still a bit of light on the main road, but the Slave Path was already dark. It was still bustling with people coming and going, very busy, completely different from the leisurely pace of people on the main road.
1 Indeed, life is realistic. Where there is a clean side, there is a filthy side. Where there is leisure, there is naturally busyness.
1 Moving through the gray-black and gray-white crowds, a sudden splash of red appeared, immediately brightening up this world.
2 When the Pig-headed Person and the woman in red finally came face to face, the crowd that had filled the entire road immediately parted, leaving the middle of the road for them.
2 “I only arrived in Sheyang City today, and I didn’t expect to run into you at night.”
2 “Is the girl you took away doing okay?”
2 “Not good. Gave her a little porridge, and she died.”
2 “The porridge you gave was too thick. You should have added some dirt to it. Once she got used to it, gradually reduce the dirt, and maybe she could have survived.”
2 “Oh, got it. Won’t save little kids next time. Too much trouble.”
2 “What kind of trouble?”
2 “She died, and I still have to be busy for a long time.”
2 “Liu Chang’an, you come be the leader. I’ll be your deputy general.”
2 Yun Ce glanced at Pei Chuan hidden in the darkness and said, “You’d better extinguish that thought. If I were leader, your group would fall apart in three days.”
3 Miss Hong shook her head and said, “No, it won’t. If I marry him, it’ll be fine. Anyway, that’s his only requirement.”
3 Yun Ce sneered and said, “What he likes is Miss Hong, the rebel leader, not some rebel deputy general. Alright, enough of that. You’re ugly, I haven’t taken a liking to you.”
3 Miss Hong laughed and said, “Marry me, and it’s like getting command over twenty thousand death warriors. It has nothing to do with whether I’m beautiful or not. Not considering it?”
3 The irritability in Yun Ce’s heart grew stronger. He walked straight up to Pei Chuan and said, “I’m not interested in being your leader, nor in marrying Miss Hong. Do you understand?”
3 Pei Chuan smiled and said, “Miss Hong is a very good partner.”
3 Yun Ce looked at Pei Chuan and said, “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t want to know. I guess the power behind you is enormous. Pingyuan City’s fall wasn’t accidental, nor is your coming to Sheyang City. Since you think Miss Hong is a good partner, don’t let her down.”
3 Pei Chuan nodded seriously and said, “I will.”
3 Yun Ce smiled and said to Pei Chuan, “When do you plan to rise up?”
3 Pei Chuan smiled and said, “Right now. If we don’t act soon, I’m afraid all the wealthy households in Sheyang City will run away.”
3 Yun Ce said satisfied, “Have you already started to equalize the rich and poor?”
4 Pei Chuan shook his head and said, “We’re only at the stage of opening granaries and distributing food. We need to accumulate more wealth to equip ourselves. We need more cities, more population, to thoroughly overthrow this Great Han that doesn’t treat us as humans.”
4 Yun Ce laughed and said, “Will your leader become emperor in the future?”
4 Pei Chuan nodded and said, “Yes. We’ll establish a new dynasty. In this dynasty, the ruler will be wise and ministers virtuous. We’ll enact the best laws, build the best cities, settle scores with those thieves who harm the people. We’ll rename and change surnames for all slaves, turning them into free people with land. We’ll let the people live in peace and contentment, each tilling their own soil.”
4 “Liu Chang’an, you’re a real man. Join us. With your ability and knowledge, you’ll surely have a place on the court in the future.”
4 Yun Ce listened to Pei Chuan describing the beautiful visions that many people after the Great Han Dynasty on Earth had once spoken of, and it took him a long time to snap out of it.
4 Although Pei Chuan didn’t say who their leader was, from those few words, Yun Ce could tell this was a battle between emerging nobles and old nobles.
4 The emerging nobles wanted to seize power from the old nobles.
4 Hmm, overall, that’s what Pei Chuan and his group were up to. For now, this organization was still thriving. Even someone like Pei Chuan was recommending talent for it. If there were more such people, the future looked really promising.
4 Yun Ce had no interest!
4 If a revolution doesn’t eliminate the emperor from the root, it doesn’t deserve the name revolution.
5 “You do your thing, I’ll do mine. That’s pretty good. With you people around, I think the treatment of the poor on Great Han land should improve a bit.”
5 After finishing talking with Pei Chuan, Yun Ce said to Miss Hong standing aside, “Congratulations on your soaring prospects and grand ambitions. But believe only five parts of what Pei Chuan says, and keep five parts for yourself.”
5 Pei Chuan’s face looked very ugly, because his face was darker than the darkness.
5 Yun Ce naturally ignored him. He spread his arms, hugged the stiff Miss Hong, then laughed loudly as he parted the crowd and walked forward.
5 “How can you be so rude?” Pei Chuan’s roar came from the darkness. Yun Ce didn’t care if he could see, flipped him the middle finger, and vanished into the darkness.
5 Peng Zeng was a very qualified knight-errant. His beloved Thunder Smoke Beast died, and this loyal knight-errant used his pair of iron hands to dig a big pit in the wasteland and bury the Thunder Smoke Beast.
5 Then, he walked all the way, robbing along the way, collecting weapons. When he returned to Sheyang City, he once again became a great hero with a bulging purse.
5 He didn’t want others to know he had been robbed in the wasteland. After returning to Sheyang City, he immediately fabricated a story of the Drought Thunder Great Hero battling hundreds of rebel scouts.
5 In this story, the Thunder Smoke Beast died from an arrow, and he took the heads of hundreds of rebels. If not for running out of supplies in the wasteland, he absolutely wouldn’t have retreated to Sheyang City.
5 As soon as the story spread from the tavern, Peng Zeng immediately received an invitation from Duke Yu, hoping he could help straighten out the household guards in the mansion.
6 The Drought Thunder Great Hero’s martial art was very high. After defeating seven or eight guard leaders in front of Duke Yu, not only did he regain all his previous equipment, but he also got a red date horse Thunder Smoke Beast that had just left juvenile stage and hadn’t pledged allegiance yet, with a promise to enter Duke Yu’s Mansion early the next morning to serve Duke Yu.
6 Yun Ce finally found Duke Yu’s Mansion after winding through the Slave Path for a long time. As soon as he looked up, he saw Drought Thunder Peng Zeng leading a majestic red date horse out of Duke Yu’s Mansion. Under the illumination of the huge wind lamp at the door, that strong man who had collapsed crying in the wasteland stood tall again, as majestic as the red date horse by his side.
6 Yun Ce had originally planned to charge straight in through the main gate, chop off the nonsense Duke Yu’s legs to hang on the city gate, fill E Ji’s sack, and then escape.
6 Seeing the horse by Peng Zeng’s side, he immediately changed his mind, because the horse spear E Ji gave him was really suitable for mounted combat, and could be used on foot too, just a bit long.
6 So, he tailed Peng Zeng all the way.
6 Because he didn’t hide much, he seemed to have been spotted by Peng Zeng. It had to be said, this guy was a very bold man with great confidence in himself, deliberately leading Yun Ce to places with fewer people and more remote.
6 The so-called remote, sparsely populated places were naturally where the slaves lived. Though slaves didn’t count as people, fortunately they had mouths, perfect for spreading the heroic sight of him beating the thief.
6 Reputation was very important to a great hero. Under the power of public opinion, this reputation was even more crucial to Peng Zeng at this moment. He urgently needed to use the life of the blind thief behind him to mend that injured heart.
